The Lisbon Treaty has given to the Commission the responsibility to get around national governments and carry out direct dialogue with citizens. There is a new provision which provides for the citizens' right of initiative allowing for the first time participatory democracy. Hence, the Commission might be called to present an “appropriate proposal” in areas falling within the EU’s competence, “on matters where citizens consider that a legal act of the Union is required for the purpose of implementing the Treaties.” However, such petition must be signed by one million nationals “from a significant number of member States.”
The Treaty foresees that the procedures and conditions required for the so called citizens' initiative would be decided in a Regulation adopted by the European Parliament and the Council. The Lisbon Treaty will enter into force on 1 December, but the “caretaker Commission” could not wait and, on 11 November, adopted a Green Paper on the European Citizens' Initiative. The Commission has launched a public consultation on this matter and all interested parties should submit their comments by 31 January 2010. Then, the European Commission will present its proposal for a regulation.
The Commission has identified several legal, administrative and practical issues with the implementation of the so called "new institutional instrument.” One could wonder whether such initiative will work in practice.
The Treaty solely indicates that the signatories of a citizens' initiative must come from "a significant number of Member States" consequently "the minimum number of Member States from which such citizens must come" will be determined in a regulation. Hence, this is one of the matters that sill needs to be settled. The Commission wants to ensure that there is balance between ensuring sufficient representativity of a “Union interest” and making the initiative sufficiently accessible. It is suggesting a threshold of one third of Member States (9 Member States.) However, this might represent an obstacle to such initiatives.
Moreover, it is necessary to set a minimum number of signatures which are required to support an initiative in each of the Member States involved. The Commission has pointed out that one million citizens represents 0.2% of the EU population (500 million) hence it has suggested to set the threshold at 0.2% of the total population of each Member State where signatures are collected as the minimum number of citizens required for that State.
The Commission is also considering setting a minimum age for supporting a citizens' initiative. In the Member States which provide for these initiatives citizens must be eligible to vote in order to participate. The Commission noted that the voting age in Austria is 16 whereas in all the other Member States is 18. The Commission is likely to propose as minimum age required to support a European citizens' initiative the citizens voting age for the European elections in their Member State of residence.
The Treaty makes no reference to what form a citizens' initiative should take, but the Commission will set some requirements in this matter. The Commission is not keen to propose for the citizens’ initiative to take the form of a draft legal act but it would require for an initiative to clearly state the subject-matter and objectives of the proposal. Nevertheless, it does not exclude the possibility for citizens to present a draft legal act.
The Commission will include in its upcoming proposal requirements for the collection, verification and authentication of signatures for a European citizens' initiative. The national authorities of the Member States will be responsible for checking the validity of signatures and “certifying the results of the collection exercise within their country.” The Commission is planning to set out common requirements at EU level. However, all Member States have their own procedures for the verification of electors and several Member States have also their own verification and authentication procedures for national citizens' initiatives which vary from one Member State to another. Unsurprisingly, the Commission is not inclined to allow Member States to regulate such procedures as, in this way, an initiative would be subject to different procedural rules in different Member States. Although the Commission might not propose full harmonization it is likely to propose minimum requirements for verification and authentication of signatures. Nevertheless, this would entail further administrative and regulatory burdens for Member States.
According to the Commission “Any approach chosen would also need to allow EU citizens that reside outside their country of origin to support citizens' initiatives.”
The Commission still has to consider several other issues such as where and how signatures can be collected, specific requirements for online collection of signatures, whether a citizen's signature for an initiative should be checked in the Member State of nationality or in the Member State of residence and how to protect personal data.
There is no time limit for the collection of signatures foreseen in the Treaty. The Commission has suggested one year period. But it sill has to decide when the time limit starts running. The Commission is planning to propose a mandatory system of registration of proposed initiatives. According to the Commission “Such registration could be done by the organisers of an initiative on a specific website provided by the Commission for this purpose.” The initiative organizers would be provided with a registration date and the time limit would start running from it.
The Commission acknowledged that for launching a European citizens' initiative it would be necessary funding and support from organizations. The Commission still has to decide the degree of information that it will require from the organizers of an initiative as regards the organisations that support the initiative and how the initiatives will be funded. The Commission has said that “(…) without prejudice to other forms of cooperation and support for civil society organizations, it is not foreseen that any specific public funding would be provided for citizens' initiatives.” The Commission might not directly provide funding for citizens' initiatives but it has been spending millions of pounds of taxpayer’s money in trans-national participatory democracy projects aiming to connect citizens with decision makers. The Commission has claimed that the EU citizens would have a stronger voice as they will be able to call on the Commission to present new policy initiatives. Margot Wallström has said "The Lisbon Treaty will provide a means for people to express themselves and to have a direct influence on EU policy-making." However, only organised citizens' groups can attain the expertise needed if they want to influence the EU in a specialized field. Most of NGOs, citizens organizations who lobby the EU institutions are funded by the Commission and they cannot be critical of the EU project, therefore this is a disguised rather than an example of democracy. Moreover, citizens would be allowed to call for new policies but not to show their dissatisfaction and call for the withdrawal of burdensome regulations which affect their daily lives. The European Citizens' Initiative will be the gateway for Eurofanatic organisations, funded by the EU, to request the Commission to initiate legislative proposals. In other words, they would give to the Commission an “excuse” to put forward more regulations.
The Lisbon treaty does not provide a time limit for the Commission to deal with a citizens' initiative. The Commission is suggesting a time-frame of 6 months from the date of formal submission of an initiative to the Commission. The Commission might then adopt a communication setting out its conclusions in relation to the action which the initiative envisages and might consider policy proposals. The Commission may also not respond to such invitations. The Commission recalls that any proposal on which it is invited to act must be within the framework of its powers. In order to avoid the situation of initiatives being rejected on grounds of inadmissibility, the Commission is likely to confer to organizers legal advice before the launching of an initiative. It remains to be seen what procedures and conditions required for the European Citizen Initiative would be included in the Commission’s final proposal. But, such initiatives would be a waste of time and money.
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